


Derailed

by timelordofrassilon



Series: Training Camp Get Together [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First Kiss, Gen, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M, Training Camp, Volleyball Dorks in Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelordofrassilon/pseuds/timelordofrassilon
Summary: Ennoshita won't survive training camp if he can't get any sleep, and he can't get any sleep if Tanaka keeps snoring at night.  He's got three days to find a solution, but he might solve a different problem instead.----Story 1 of the Training Camp Get Together series!





	1. Half Asleep

A short blast on a whistle marked set point for Karasuno, and Ennoshita watched Nishinoya half-jog back to the sidelines.  Tsukishima silently replaced him, gearing up to serve.

“You look tired, Chikara,” Nishinoya ribbed him.  Ennoshita always looked tired, but this time he had good reason.  “Still three more days of training camp left, you should get excited.”

Three more days.  Ennoshita wanted to sob.

“Yeah, I don’t think I can-”

“ _SERVICE ACE!”_

The rest of the team erupted into cheers.  Ennoshita’s breath was knocked out of him when Nishinoya leapt onto his back, pumping his fist into the air higher than Hinata’s, who had jumped so high he could have landed on Asahi’s shoulders.  Their Nekoma opponents looked irritated, and even over the din Ennoshita could hear their libero telling off another player for skipping out on receiving practice one too many times.

From the corner of his eye, Ennoshita saw a ball launch in his direction and instinctively dove to receive it.  It landed limply in his arms.  The lack of rebound threw him off, and he only had time to register the texture of fabric before overbalancing and landing in a heap on the gym floor, Nishinoya still on his back.

Noya hopped up and pulled Ennoshita into a sitting position, slapping his shoulder yelling “don’t mind!”  Still dazed, he shook his head and looked down at the bundle of cloth in his hands.  Uncrumpled, he saw it was a Karasuno gym shirt and a yellow practice jersey bearing the number 5.

A primal yell split the gym and he saw Tanaka to the right, bare-chested, and shouting congratulations at Tsukishima for his winning point.

“Nice kill!  Come on, celebrate!”

“No.”

“Senpai’s orders, off with it!”  Tanaka grabbed at the hem of his shirt and tugged roughly upwards.

“ _No_.”  Tsukishima insisted, fighting to keep his shirt on with one hand and his glasses on with the other.  Yamaguchi hid a snicker behind his hand, making no attempt to help.  Nekoma’s captain watched through the net with unconcealed glee, biting his lip in a way that made Ennoshita blush.

He looked over at Tanaka again, and his chest contorted with emotion.  This was all his fault.  It just wasn’t enough that he was so loud during the day.  He brought an energy to Karasuno that no one else could duplicate, and Ennoshita appreciated, even _liked_ that about Tanaka.  There were a lot of things he liked about Tanaka.  His contagious enthusiasm.  His talent for the game.  His insistence on showing off his back muscles.

 _Get it together, Chikara, you hate him right now, remember?_  he reminded himself, forcing a glare in Tanaka’s direction.  Tanaka looked over at him with that feral grin and winked.

Ennoshita stood quickly to hide the blush creeping up his neck and tightened his grip on Tanaka’s clothes.  He marched toward him with every intention of shoving the stupid shirt down his stupid throat.

“Hey, Ennoshita, help me take Tsukishima’s shirt off!”

“Put your clothes back on,” he shoved the shirt and jersey into Tanaka’s chest.  Tanaka reached to grab them and Tsukishima, having been released, turned to leave immediately.  His long strides took him out of the gym in a matter of seconds with Yamaguchi right behind him.

“Call me senpai!” Tanaka yelled by way of goodbye.  They ignored him.  He flicked his wrist to drape his clothes over one shoulder and turned back to Ennoshita, who was still glaring.

“What’s the matter, want me to take yours off instead?”  Tanaka raised his hands and wiggled his fingers threateningly.

 _Yes please._ “No thanks.”

“You look tired.”

_No kidding._

“C’mon, let’s get to dinner.  Gotta eat all the good stuff before they get packed up.”   Tanaka nodded towards an approaching group of players.  Their blue shirts gave them away as Fukurodani.  “Those guys eat everything.”

They passed the Fukurodani team on the way out and Ennoshita overheard one of them.

“Akaashi, we should take our shirts off when we win.”

“I don’t think so, Bokuto-san,” said the other player, without looking at his captain.

Bokuto’s protests continued until after the Karasuno players left the gym.  Ennoshita took a deep breath of cool night air, enjoying the quiet breezeway that connected their practice areas with the cafeteria.  A quick dinner, then back to the second years’ room.  If he skipped the showers, he’d be able to get at least a couple hours sleep before everyone else went to bed.  But after that he’d have to deal with—

“I don’t think that’s his first name,” Tanaka commented.

Ennoshita was snapped out of his thoughts.   “What?”

“Bokuto-san,” Tanaka turned and pointed, continuing to walk backwards down the sidewalk.  “The Fukurodani captain.  I don’t think that’s his first name.”

“So?”  There was a turn coming up and Ennoshita briefly considered allowing Tanaka to continue off the sidewalk, falling ass-first into the damp grass.  Instead he sighed and reached out, turning Tanaka back around by the shoulder.  His hand pushed against the shirt still draped there.  “You should put those on.  You’re going to catch a cold.”

“ _So_ ,” Tanaka continued ignoring the shirt comment and jabbing a thumb at his chest, “ _We_ get to call our captain by his first name.  They don’t.  Ha!”

“Go us,” Ennoshita responded without enthusiasm.  Fukurodani’s camaraderie had no effect on his sleep schedule, which was currently his only concern.

“Yeah!” Tanaka agreed.  He thrust his chin into the air with pride. “Go us!”  After a few more seconds of walking, he continued.  “Hey, now, there’s a thought…” he began in a sly tone, looking over at Ennoshita with a devious smirk.

 _Oh no_.  “What?”

Tanaka leaned in confidentially.  Ennoshita could smell the salty sweat on his skin.  “Does that mean next year, when _you’re_ captain, everyone’s gonna call you by _your_ first name?”

Ennoshita almost stopped in his tracks, but covered by pretending to kick at a rock on the sidewalk.  He honestly hadn’t thought about it.  All of the underclassmen called their captain ‘Daichi-san’.  But the co-captain didn’t.  And if he appointed Tanaka as his own co-captain, then every day at practice, he would hear—

“Well, Chikara?”

Ennoshita flushed, head to toe.  “ _Tanaka, that’s embarrassing!”_

“Sorry, sorry,” Tanaka put a hand behind his head in false apology.  “Just practicing.”  He brought his other hand up and walked with his fingers laced on the back of his scalp.

 “It’s fine.”  Ennoshita sighed.  “I’m just really tired, I didn’t sleep well.”

“’Fine’, huh?”

If Ennoshita had seen the smile Tanaka gave him then, he might have forgiven him for his lack of sleep.

 

After inhaling his food, Ennoshita walked the few blocks back to the makeshift-dorm they were staying in.  Their usual lodgings were undergoing renovation, but one of Takeda-sensei’s friends lived nearby and was travelling.  The team was staying in the empty house, after swearing to their teacher (and to Daichi) that they wouldn’t break anything or go digging through personal belongings.

But Ennoshita’s loyalty to his promise was tested.  He wanted nothing more than to search every inch of the house for a pair of earplugs.  He hadn’t slept in two days.

Because Tanaka snored like a freight train.

He usually kept a set in his bag in case he couldn’t move his futon to the opposite side of whatever room they were staying in, but they were nowhere to be found.  And now he was stuck sleeping in a tiny room with the other second years for a full week with nothing to muffle the cacophony next to him.  Every bit of space in the room was taken up by bedrolls.  Only Nishinoya slept slightly apart from the rest, next to the door.  This had been agreed upon by everyone beforehand – he tended to sleepwalk, and no one wanted to be stepped on.

Tonight, the rest of the team would be in the cafeteria socializing for a little while longer, and Ennoshita planned to take full advantage of the quiet.  He was still daydreaming about his two hours of uninterrupted sleep when he reached the door of the house and realized:

He didn’t have a key.

He checked the top of the door frame and kicked over a few rocks in the front flowerbed, but no luck.  If he wasn’t so sapped of energy, he would have cried.  He sat down on the porch and put his head in his hands.  He was so _tired_.  He just wanted _sleep_.

 

“Oh my god, is he _dead?_ ” Ennoshita was jolted awake at the sound of Hinata’s voice.  He pushed himself up off the porch, one arm tingling from being underneath him for so long.

“He’s moving, dumbass,” came Kageyama’s retort.

A gasp from Hinata.  “Zombie!”

Ennoshita tried to reassure the first years that no, he wasn’t dead, but all that came out was a sleepy groan.  He waved his half-dead arm in their direction and saw Hinata duck behind Kageyama, still muttering about zombies.

“No apocalypse today, sorry,” Ennoshita mumbled.  “Just fell asleep on the porch is all.”

The rest of the team made their way up the sidewalk, chatting loudly about their victory over Nekoma and some event during dinner that involved three sets of chopsticks, a plate of curry, and a squirrel that had come in through a window.

“Why didn’t you knock?” asked Tsukishima, walking up the porch steps and pulling off his headphones.  “Yachi came back hours ago to do homework.”

Ennoshita barely heard him; he was too focused on Tsukishima’s noise-cancelling headphones being stuffed into a duffel bag.  He wondered idly if Tsukishima would rent them to him for the night.

“Oh look, the door’s unlocked!” came Hinata’s voice again.  It faded as the first years entered.  “We’re back, Yachi-san!  How was studying?”

Ennoshita heard Yachi’s muffled response and thunked his head back against the concrete.  Maybe he would sleep out here where it was quieter.  If he got mugged and taken to the hospital, they might have earplugs he could use.  He was near to dozing again when he heard Nishinoya.

“… and they’ll n _ever_ get all the fur out of that curry pot.  Oh, hey, Chikara, what’s wrong?”  Noya’s face appeared in Ennoshita’s field of vision.

“Yeah, Chikara, what’s wrong?”  Tanaka also popped into view.  Noya gave him an approving glance that Ennoshita might have imagined.

He turned his head slightly to look at Tanaka.  _Fuck you and your perfect face and the stupid noises that come out of it._   “Nothing.”

Nishinoya looked concerned.  “You’re sleeping on the ground, man.”

“I’m trying, but people keep talking to me.”

Noya clapped once.  “Come on, Ryuu, let’s get this guy to bed.”

“Yes sir!” Tanaka snapped a sharp salute.

“One, two—” they said together, and Ennoshita felt himself lifted off the ground.  Tanaka’s grip was strong on his upper arms, and Noya kept his feet from dragging.  They carried him into the house and up the stairs, still talking about the squirrel and the curry.  He was too tired to care, and was fast asleep by the time they dumped him onto his futon.

Ennoshita’s dreams lapsed into a nightmare about a rabid, motorcycle-riding bear wreaking havoc with a chainsaw and he woke to Tanaka’s snoring again.  The clock on his phone told him it was barely midnight, so he had to deal with at least another seven hours of noise before he could go down to the kitchen and eat breakfast.  He noticed that he was still wearing his shoes and gym clothes, so he decided he would go to the bathroom and change.  That might kill a few minutes.  Maybe he could take his futon and sleep in the tub.  He had a brief mental image of waking up and pulling back the shower curtain to Coach Ukai or someone else taking a piss right next to him and decided against it.

His duffel bag was next to his mat (he made a mental note to thank Kinoshita and Narita in the morning) and he made his way across the hall, not bothering to be quiet.  If they could sleep through Tanaka’s snoring, they certainly wouldn’t hear Ennoshita brushing his teeth.  He did tiptoe around Nishinoya’s futon before noticing it was empty.  There was no telling what part of the house he was in.  Maybe _he_ was sleeping in the bathtub.  When he got to the bathroom, Ennoshita checked behind the shower curtain before relieving himself, just in case.

Three hours later, Ennoshita lay on his futon having gone through Karasuno’s entire season history in play-by-play, mentally drafted himself a study schedule for finals, and named every member of their class in alphabetical order, and _still_ Tanaka snored on.  Ennoshita wondered if he could get away with smacking him, or at least rolling him over so his face was buried in the pillow.  Maybe he could use his gym bag and hit Tanaka in the face.  Maybe he could cover Tanaka’s mouth with something.  Like his own mouth.  Maybe kissing Tanaka would shut him up.  The idea was unrealistic, but it did have the benefit of distracting him for another twenty minutes.

After going through as many fantasy variations as he could of Tanaka not snoring due to Ennoshita’s mad kissing skills, he settled on trying to turn him over to face the other way.  If Tanaka woke up, well they’d have a couple seconds silence at least.

Ennoshita could see the curve of Tanaka’s bare shoulder in the moonlight coming through the window.  He was sleeping in a sleeveless shirt.  Ennoshita reached out a hand, and as soon as he made contact with skin—silence.

“Sorry to wake you, Tanaka, but you’re snoring really loud.  Can you turn over?”

No response.

“Tanaka?” he shook him slightly.  Still nothing.  “Whatever,” Ennoshita mumbled to himself, pulling his hand away and laying back down.  Immediately, the snoring started up.  He grabbed at Tanaka’s shoulder again, preparing to shake him enough to rattle his brains, but the moment they touched, Tanaka’s breathing calmed.  Deep, slow breaths told Ennoshita he was still fast asleep.

_Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me._

He situated himself on one edge of his futon, careful to maintain contact with Tanaka.  If this worked, he might survive training camp after all.  He stared at his hand, resting casually on Tanaka’s shoulder.  His fingers twitched, aching to trace the lines of muscle.  He wished he could rest his head there instead of on the tatami mat between them.  The thought of that and the peaceful silence put him to sleep within seconds.

 

He woke up when his elbow hit the floor with a _thunk_.  Tanaka had thrown his arm off, and was sitting up to stretch.  Ennoshita could see the strain his muscles were putting on what was left of his shirt.  Maybe that’s why it didn’t have sleeves anymore.

As Ennoshita peeled his face off the floor, he reassured himself that no one would say anything about his sleeping position.  No one noticed things like that anymore.  They learned early on that when you have several people sharing a room, some are going to take up more space than others.  Every member of the team had been rudely awakened at least once with Noya sprawled on top of them, and Kageyama often complained of waking up with Hinata’s feet in his face.

 Ennoshita could confirm Hinata’s accidental antics first-hand.  He had woken once to see Asahi staring at the ceiling, shellshocked, with Hinata’s pinky toe shoved up his left nostril.  He gave Ennoshita a look that said, plainly, _help!_   Ennoshita had smiled and run a fingernail down Hinata’s heel.  Hinata giggled in his sleep and pulled his feet away, freeing Asahi from his fate.  The memory made Ennoshita snort.

“What, you’re gonna laugh at a guy that takes his morning stretches seriously?” Tanaka jibed.

Awake for thirty seconds and already trying to pick a fight.  Ennoshita tried to hide a smile.

“What’s funny, eh?”  Tanaka made a tough face.  “How about I pin you to that futon and make you tell me?”

 _Well, as much fun as that would be…_ “Just thinking about that time Asahi-san was too polite to tell Hinata that his toe was stuck up his nose,” he mumbled into his pillow.

Tanaka roared a laugh and slapped a thigh in mirth and they spent the rest of the morning trading stories about the team’s travel mishaps.  The time Hinata barfed on Tanaka’s track suit and he wore shorts all winter because the smell wouldn’t go away.  The time coach Ukai took them to the wrong building when they walked in on a little kid’s birthday party and had been been chased out by a tiara-wearing 6-year-old with a piñata baton).  The time Tsukishima’s glasses got stepped on by a sleepwalking Noya and he had to wear Takeda-sensei’s for a match and the rest of the team called him ‘professor’ for a week.

Ennoshita was in a much better mood for the rest of the day, despite his continued sleep deprivation.  The knowledge that he had a plan for a full night’s rest ahead of him kept him going.  He even subbed in for Daichi during their third game against Fukurodani, and his solid receives kept the ball in play until the point count reached the 30s.  They lost the set when one of Tanaka’s spikes went out-of-bounds.

“Tanaka, pay attention to the _ball_!” Daichi barked.

“You’re right, Daichi-san, I’m sorry!”  He fell to his knees dramatically.  “Our team just looks so _cool_ I can’t help but watch!”

Sugawara came over to Ennoshita, who was bent double, still catching his breath after the extended set.  “Nice receives,” he said.  Ennoshita nodded his thanks.  “You’re going to be a great captain.”

“You think so?”

“You inspire your team, Ennoshita-san.”  Suga nodded towards Tanaka, still begging Daichi’s forgiveness.  “But you _will_ have to keep your ace in check.”

“Any tips on that would be great.”

“I don’t think you’ll have too much of a problem,” Suga said.  Ennoshita looked at him quizzically.  Suga leaned over to whisper, “He missed his spike because he was too busy watching you play.”

Curse his sleep-addled brain, there was no making sense of this right now.  Before he could ask for explanation, Sugawara smiled and left, moving towards the captain.  Ennoshita watched him touch Daichi gently on the arm; Daichi stopped yelling immediately.  He was forcibly reminded of the night before, when just a small amount of contact was enough to stop Tanaka’s snoring.

 _Well, if that’s how a captain and vice-captain are supposed to work,_ Ennoshita thought, _we may just manage after all._

When the team was prepping for bed that night, Ennoshita put his plan into action.  Under the guise of looking through his bag, he shifted his futon slightly closer to Tanaka’s.  He would wait until the rest of the second years drifted off, then roll over and lay a hand on his arm.  With their beds a few inches closer, he would be able to sleep with his head on the pillow instead of having his cheek plastered to a tatami mat.  He still had a crick in his neck from the night before.  Just in case, he set the alarm on his phone a minute earlier than usual.  Everyone else would gripe at him in the morning, but it would give him a chance to roll over with no one the wiser.

Once Coach Ukai called ‘lights out’, Ennoshita focused on his teammates.  He knew their sleep patterns; he’d had nothing else to do for the past three nights but listen to them breathe.  One by one they dropped off, but Tanaka stayed, stubbornly, awake.

 _Wonder what’s keeping him up?_   Ennoshita thought.  _Maybe he ate some peppers at dinner and it cleared his sinuses._ A few more minutes passed, and he drifted closer to sleep, ideas getting more surreal as his consciousness faded into dreams.  _Maybe I have magical snore-curing powers.  Maybe he died and I’ll have to level up my snore-curing power to bring him back to life.  Maybe when—_

He heard the snuffling breath that heralded Tanaka’s snoring and was instantly awake again.  Ennoshita reached for him, aiming for his forearm but touching the back of his hand instead.

Perfect, blissful, silence greeted him.  Ennoshita was falling asleep again almost instantly, unable to resist snaking his fingers in-between Tanaka’s.  He would let go as soon as his alarm went off.

“Um.  You need something?” Tanaka asked.

Ennoshita’s heart rate rocketed like he’d done four laps of diving receives.  He dropped Tanaka’s hand and stuttered an apology.  “Oh, I’m- you- snoring?”

“What?”  The tone was curious, not accusatory, which Ennoshita took as a good sign.

He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself.  “You don’t snore if someone’s touching you,” he explained as simply as possible.

“That’s…” _Bullshit?  A stupid excuse to try to hold someone’s hand when they’re sleeping?_   “kinda cool.”  Ennoshita sighed in relief.  “But why are _you grabbing my_ _hand_ —”

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit._

Tanaka sat up, visible in the moonlight coming from the window “—when you could be grabbing _these guns right here!_ ”  He flexed his arm in Ennoshita’s face and slapped at his bicep, wiggling his eyebrows for good measure.

“ _Tanaka, go to SLEEP!”_ came Daichi’s voice from the next room.  Tanaka roared with laughter and flopped back down onto his futon.  His face was turned away, but his arm was still out towards Ennoshita.  Palm-up.

Ennoshita stared at it, heart still hammering from being caught.  Tanaka flexed his wrist up, bringing his hand off the floor.

Surely, _surely_ he wasn’t suggesting what Ennoshita thought— _hoped_ —he was.

Tanaka wiggled his fingers.

 _He’s just being practical_ , Ennoshita thought, but there was no way he was missing this chance.  He reached out and his fingers slid over Tanaka’s palm.  It was flat and wide, rough from practice, and warmer than he would have thought.  Their fingers interlocked again, and Ennoshita finally slid into a peaceful sleep.  His last imagined thought was of a gentle squeeze, and Tanaka’s thumb tracing soft designs onto his own.

 

Ennoshita woke warm and completely rested before any of the other second years.  It was nearly time to get up, judging by the sunlight coming in through the window and the shuffling noise of Takeda-sensei cooking breakfast downstairs.  He reached for his phone to check the time, but found himself unable to move.  His arm was completely numb.

The memory of the night before rushed back to him and he grinned with embarrassment and glee.  Even if Tanaka thought it was just to keep him from snoring, they had still fallen asleep holding hands, and Ennoshita was going to keep that memory fresh in his mind for as long as possible.  He looked down at his dead arm.  Or at least tried to.  So far as he could tell, they were still holding hands, but Tanaka had rolled over in the night, trapping both of their arms beneath him.  That’s when he noticed Tanaka’s _other_ arm flung over his chest.  No wonder it was so warm.

This would be harder to explain to their teammates.

 Ennoshita tried to roll Tanaka back over, but couldn’t shift any weight with his arm numb.  He would have to wake Tanaka up without everyone else hearing.

“Tanaka,” Ennoshita whispered.

No response.

“Tanaka, wake up.”

He couldn’t risk being any louder without alerting the other second years, and there _was_ something he’d been wanting to try anyway.  Might as well give it a go while he had the opportunity and a solid excuse.  He leaned over as far as he could, putting his mouth right next to Tanaka’s ear.

“Ryuunosuke?”

Tanaka’s eyes shot open.  He looked around, blinking hard in the sunlight, and saw Ennoshita’s face inches from his own.  He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, fighting to focus his vision.

“Hi,” he said.

_You wake up drooling on the floor, half on top of another guy and all you can say is ‘hi’?_

“Hi,” Ennoshita responded.  Tanaka just yawned and closed his eyes again.  “Um,” Ennoshita said, trying to keep him from falling back asleep, “you should probably roll over.”

Tanaka mumbled into the floor.  “Make me.”

“I tried, I can’t, my arm’s asleep.”

“So am I.”

Apparently Tanaka wasn’t much for nuance when he was still waking up.  Now wasn’t the time for subtlety.  “The alarm is about to go off, and everyone is going to see you on top of me if you don’t move.  You know what they’ll think?”

Tanaka opened one eye and looked at him.  “Am I bothering you?”

“N-no.”  Had he been any more awake, he would have lied.

“Then I couldn’t give a shit what they think.”

Well, his confidence was admirable.  Still, Ennoshita didn’t want to spend the last two days of training camp enduring jibes from the rest of the second years.  Not that anyone on the team cared about his sexuality—it was one of those things that everyone knew and nobody talked about.  Like Daichi and Suga.  But they _would_ tease him and Tanaka both if they woke up to see them cuddled together.

 _That_ thought woke him up completely.  They were _cuddling_.  This wasn’t some keep-from-snoring convenience position or sorry-you-woke-up-with-my-elbow-in-your-kidney room-sharing mishap.  This was early morning, arms-wrapped-around-each-other, snoozing-until-the-alarm-goes-off cuddling.

It had never occurred to him that Tanaka might like him back.  All his bravado, over the past week especially, had that been _flirting?_ He had to ask before he was awake enough to know better. “Tanaka?”

“Oh my _god_ , Chikara, let me _sleep._ ”

The sound of his name was all the confirmation he needed.  He reached up with his free arm and touched the one Tanaka had flung over his chest.  His fingers trailed the line of Tanaka’s forearm and Tanaka’s embrace tightened in response.   Ennoshita took a deep breath to muster his courage and shifted from his position on the pillow to rest his forehead against Tanaka’s.  He opened his mouth to say—something, he wasn’t sure.  A confession, maybe?  Tanaka’s eyes flicked open and down to his lips.  Their noses brushed together.

And Ennoshita’s phone alarm went off.


	2. Wide Awake

Why why _why_ had he set it a minute early?!   Ennoshita huffed in frustration and stretched his free arm above his head to feel around for the offending device.  He tilted his neck back, trying to see where it was.  It continued to beep loudly.

Tanaka grumbled and lifted himself up, reaching to grab the phone.  Ennoshita felt chilly at the absence of contact, and his arm started to tingle as blood rushed back into it.  Tanaka moved to sit up and the phone was silenced.  Ennoshita looked away, embarrassed, unable to make eye contact with him while Narita and Kinoshita could be heard stirring, complaining about early rising, bright sunlight, cold floors, and no longer being asleep.  Noya’s bedroll was already empty.

A few seconds later the rest of the team’s alarms went off, and during their shuffle to silence them, Tanaka leaned down and pecked a kiss on Ennoshita’s forehead.

“Later,” he promised.

 

Their practice matches that morning were a blur of wins and losses, though less of the latter than usual.  Ennoshita performed receive after flawless receive, but the cheers of his teammates from the sidelines were nothing next to the synergy present on the court.  Rather than distracting him, the conversation that morning had sharpened his focus.  He amazed himself by not staring at Tanaka while the ball was in play.

Lunch was a different story.

The third year captains from Nekoma and Fukurodani had joined Karasuno’s table in the cafeteria.  They sat on either side of Hinata, making him look even smaller than usual, comparing stories about dramatic plays and tournaments they’d been in.  Hinata was starstruck.  Kageyama looked like he was fighting the urge to take notes.  The Nekoma captain was using dramatic hand gestures and kept flinging an arm over Tsukishima’s shoulder where he sat on his other side.  Tsukishima repeatedly brushed the arm off without breaking his conversation with Yamaguchi.

Even with Nishinoya having swapped over to the Nekoma table to compare phone apps with their setter, there was less seating at the Karasuno table than there had been previously.  While inter-team friendships were encouraged, Ennoshita hadn’t yet had the chance to make any connections with players from other schools, and he certainly wasn’t going to sit down next to a stranger and start up a conversation.  Maybe he would get lucky and one of his teammates would leave.

“Oi, Chikara!”  Tanaka was waving him over.

Ennoshita took his tray to the table, prepared to stuff a fistful of rice up Tanaka’s nose if he did anything stupid.

“Pull up a chair.”

Ennoshita looked at the small gap between Tanaka’s chair and Daichi’s.  It was barely a foot wide.   “I don’t think they make chairs that size.”

Tanaka heaved a dramatic sigh, and spoke a little louder than normal—a feat that was impressive in its own right.   “Well, there’s no other solution, you’ll have to sit in my lap.”

Ennoshita looked at his plate of stir-fry pork.  It looked much too tasty to waist dumping it over Tanaka’s head.  Tanaka had always pushed his buttons, but now Ennoshita knew it was his way of flirting.  With that realization came a feeling of a wicked glee.  He grinned and narrowed his eyes at Tanaka.  _Oh, you’ve got it bad, don’t you?  Fine, you want to flirt?  Let’s flirt._

With an attempted replica of Sugawara’s winning smile, Ennoshita said innocently, “Are you sure?  I wouldn’t want to distract you from your meal, Ryuunosuke.”

Tanaka choked on his drink and water spilled down the front of his shirt.  Ennoshita set down his tray to grab napkins, using them to soak up the water on Tanaka’s face and neck.  “You’re a mess.  I’m not sure I want water spilled on me.  No lap for you, scoot over, we’ll split the chair.”

It was hard to share a plastic cafeteria seat without looking awkward, but Ennoshita did his best.  Being right-handed, he kept accidentally elbowing Tanaka in the ribs until Tanaka had the brilliant idea of putting his arm on the back of the chair.  It certainly wasn’t the worst position to be in.

Even better was the ability to hold a conversation without the rest of the noisy table being able to overhear it.  Ennoshita barely heard Tanaka at first, mumbling about ‘throwing someone’s name around’ and ‘first time is supposed to be special’.

“It was,” Ennoshita said softly.  “You were sleeping on top of me, remember?”

Tanaka reddened, not quite meeting his eye.  “About this morning…”

Ennoshita’s heart thumped in panic.  “You’re not trying to back out of your promise, are you?”

“What promise?”

“’Later’, you said.”

“Oh.”  Tanaka fidgeted with a still-wet napkin.  “I mean later as in, you know, if you wanted to later, then maybe later we could—”

Ennoshita pursed his lips.  It looked like he would have to take the initiative.  “How about this:” he said, taking a sip of Tanaka’s drink, “kiss me after practice, or I’ll punch you in the face.”

To anyone else, that statement would have been threatening.  To Tanaka, it was downright lovey-dovey.  Still, he looked away with a little pout.  “I was gonna anyway…”

Ennoshita wiped his mouth to hide a short laugh.  “You’re a regular tsundere, aren’t you?”

Tanaka regained his usual expression, ready to engage in his default teasing behavior.  “That depends, do you like the tsundere type?”

“I like you, don’t I?”

Well, that was the lamest confession in the history of the universe.

“Tanaka, are you catching a cold?” Suga asked from two seats down, “Your face is all red.”  Tanaka waved away his worry.

They ate in silence for a few minutes.  Ennoshita was nervous that he’d moved things too quickly.  He wasn’t sure what to say—or even if he should say anything—but he calmed immediately when he felt Tanaka’s hand move from the back of the chair to rest, loose, against his ribs.  Every few seconds, his fingers would flex in a gentle caress.  It tickled, but Ennoshita would die before asking him to stop.  He searched frantically for a topic of conversation.

“Mine wasn’t either,” he said.

Tanaka looked at him, chopsticks in his mouth and eyebrows raised in a question.

 _Oops, context._   Ennoshita tried again.  “When you called me ‘Chikara’ for the first time the other day, it was out of nowhere.”

Tanaka looked offended.  “We were walking alone at night, it was romantic!”

Ennoshita thought back, and smiled at the memory.  “Yeah, ok, I guess it was.”

“WHO WANTS SOME EXTRA PRACTICE?” Nishinoya’s face suddenly appeared between them.  Ennoshita jumped up, spooked, and the chair overbalanced with Tanaka’s weight concentrated on one side of it.  He fell sideways into Asahi’s lap.  Daichi glanced over from his other side, blinked once, and turned back to his conversation with Sugawara.

Asahi helped Tanaka right himself and set the chair back on its legs.  Noya continued, unperturbed.  “ _I’m_ going back to Second Gym after dinner tonight to practice setting with some of the guys from Nekoma,” he said, standing proudly with his hands on his hips.  “And _you two_ are invited.”  He poked Ennoshita and Tanaka both, hard in the midsection before bounding back to the Nekoma table.

Ennoshita rubbed his stomach where he’d been jabbed.  “Didn’t really give us much of a choice,” he said to Tanaka, who was still brushing Asahi’s leftover rice off of his shirt.

“Yeah,” he said.  “Might be a nice walk back to the house after everyone else leaves, though.”

Ennoshita couldn’t agree more.

 

The rest of the day’s games ended in losses, but Ennoshita found that a few runs up the hill outside aren’t so bad when the target of your affection refuses to wear a shirt.  He managed to find every divot on the slope by sheer measure of not paying attention to where he was putting his feet, and ended up rolling halfway down the hill during their second climb, taking a third of the team out with him.  Nishinoya and Hinata had great fun jumping their teammates like hurdles—even discussed making a game of it during their free time, and Daichi didn’t even tell them off, though he may have just been winded from falling down the hill.

Once the team recovered most of their composure, they stood in the shade of a tree and took the water bottles offered to them by their managers.  Tanaka was hunched over, hands on his knees, still panting from the heat and the exhaustion of the run.  Ennoshita stood next to him.  As he watched, Tanaka straightened and stretched, reaching his arms above his head and brushing a low-hanging branch with his fingertips.  He glanced up at it and tilted his head to the side with a curious expression, as though planning to jump and grab it.

“Tanaka,” Daichi’s voice rang out.  Tanaka froze, mid-crouch, and snapped to attention.  “Put your shirt back on.

“But Daichi-san, it’s hot!” he whined.

 _Truth_ , thought Ennoshita, though not in the context of temperature.

Daichi tossed the previously-discarded shirt in Tanaka’s face.  “You’re going to get a sunburn,” he said as he walked past Tanaka towards the other third years.  “And,” Daichi leaned in so that only they could hear, “you’re distracting Ennoshita.”  He smiled at both of them, but then clapped them each on the shoulder with a stern expression.  “Don’t let it interfere with the team,” he said before walking away.

Ennoshtia was stunned.  “What… what does he know?”

“ _How_ does he know?” asked Tanaka.

“We did share a chair at lunch.”

Tanaka crossed his arms, stubbornly.  “There’s not even anything to know yet.  You didn’t confess to me properly.”

Ennoshita punched him on the shoulder.  “You first.”

“Okay,” Tanaka said, surprising them both, judging by his expression.  He hid his face for a moment by putting his shirt back on.

“Really?” Ennoshita asked.  A feeling reminiscent of Christmas morning made him incapable of repressing a grin.

Tanaka shuffled his feet in the grass.  “Well, yeah,” he mumbled.  “But you have to go right after.”  He squared his shoulders, effectively shaking off his embarrassment, and assumed his usual ‘tough-guy’ persona.  Ennoshita smiled at the transition.

_You can’t fool me, you big softie._

As if in confirmation, Tanaka reached out and gave his hand a squeeze as the team walked down the hill and back into the gym.

 

Dinner was quick, as everyone was in a hurry to either rest or return to practice.  The seating area was again jumbled together with players of different teams, but Ennoshita was relieved to see two chairs side-by-side at Karasuno’s usual table. 

He and Tanaka ate together.  Ennoshita was pleased to find that their friendship was unaffected, and relieved at not having to hide his emotions anymore.  That, combined with Tanaka’s forthcoming confession, made him jittery.  He twirled his chopsticks, and would have been bouncing his leg under the table if his thigh hadn’t been pressed to Tanaka’s own.

“You need to eat if we’re doing extra practice tonight,” Nishinoya said through a mouthful of rice from Ennoshita’s other side.  “Second Gym, don’t forget.”

Ennoshita nodded.  He suddenly recalled Noya’s empty futon that morning, and asked “so where did you sleep last night?”

Noya dropped his chopsticks, and scrambled quickly under the table to retrieve them.  “Bathtub,” he said as he plopped back into his chair.  He laughed loudly and continued, “nothing too exciting.”

“I almost slept in the bathtub the other night.”  Ennoshita told his fellow second years about not being able to sleep through Tanaka’s snoring, and his fear of waking up with someone else in the bathroom.  Kinoshita and Narita leaned in to listen, and by the end of his story, half the team was rolling with laughter and ribbing Tanaka for being unable to keep quiet, even when asleep. 

Ennoshita felt good to have his team smiling and laughing around him, and he shivered pleasantly when Tanaka’s hand settled warm on his knee for the rest of the meal.

 

After dinner, the players spread out in all different directions.  Some headed home, some back to dormitories, and some to the various gyms scattered around campus.  Ennoshita and Tanaka walked together, slower than the rest, enjoying each other’s company and the brief reprieve from volleyball.  By the time they reached Second Gym, they could already hear the soft _pap pap_ of a volleyball being set back and forth.  Strangely, the door was closed. 

Tanaka reached out to open it, but it didn’t budge.  Ennoshita tried knocking while Tanaka yelled, “Oi, Noya!”

A drum of running shoes approached, and the door slid open, Nishinoya leaning out from it with his hands on the doorposts.  He flashed his most mischievous grin.  “Sorry, setters only.”

Ennoshita could see Nekoma’s setter— _Kenma?_   he reminded himself—setting up a net with one hand while texting with the other.

“You’re not a setter, and you told us to come!” Tanaka snarked at the libero.

An angelic look came over Nishinoya’s face, and he stepped out of the doorway to drape an arm over each of their shoulders.  His toes barely brushed the ground as he stood on tiptoe.  “You are _absolutely_ correct.  I _did_ ask you to come.”  He turned to Tanaka, “ _Loudly_.”  He turned to Ennoshita, “In front of Daichi.”  He winked, then dropped to the ground and slipped back into the gym.  “You guys have fun.”

The door slid shut behind him.

“Did he just—?” Ennoshita started, but the door slid open again almost immediately to reveal Kenma, expressionless and still staring at his phone.

“There’s a park across the street with a walking trail,” he informed them, before Nishinoya’s grinning face reappeared to slam the door shut again.

 “He’s the best friend I ever had,” Tanaka sniffled, staring at the closed door.

Ennoshita was suddenly nervous at the prospect of this unexpected alone time and tried to keep the quiver out of his voice when he asked, “Want to try the walking trail?”

Tanaka flashed that feral grin of his and said, “Nah, I want to go climb that tree we were under today.” 

But the tree was occupied by either a large owl or a family of argumentative squirrels, so they continued around the back of the gym, side-by-side, neither speaking, knuckles brushing occasionally as they walked.  Right before they turned the corner again, Tanaka flung out an arm, smacking the wall next to Ennoshita. 

Ennoshita pulled up short, then giggled.  He looked at Tanaka.  “Really?  With the kabe-don and everything?”

“Look, everything I know about romance comes from manga, ok?  I have no idea what I’m doing or what I’m _supposed_ to be doing or how to explain what I’m feeling right now, I just—“  He covered his face with both hands, “I— I like girls.”

Ouch. 

Ennoshita fought the urge to cry with frustration.  He balled his hand into a fist, with every intention of beating the crap out of Tanaka for leading him on.  Tanaka must have felt the daggers he was glaring, because he dropped his hands and held them up, pleading.

“Oh god, that’s not—“ he pounded his fists on his close-cropped hair and gave a frustrated groan. “I mostly say what I’m thinking and I’ve been trying to _not_ say this for so long that it…  Please, just hear me out.”

Ennoshita eased some of the tension out of his shoulders, but still set his teeth so hard his jaw muscles flexed.

“Where was I?”

“Girls,” Ennoshita reminded him through clenched teeth.

Tanaka’s eyes lit up.  “Yeah, girls!  They’re short, and their clothes are cute.  Their skin looks so soft, and they always smell nice.  But—“ Tanaka licked his lips nervously and scrubbed a hand through his short hair.  He didn’t quite meet Ennoshita’s gaze.  “But when I think about kissing and holding hands, and dating, you know that kind of stuff?”  he trailed off.

This wasn’t the confession that Ennoshita had expected, but Tanaka coming out to him was still a really big deal.  He knew how hard it was.  “You think about guys?” he prompted.

Tanaka locked eyes with him.  “I think about you.”

Oh.  _Oh._

“You still look like you’re going to punch me,” Tanaka said.

Ennoshita was reeling, but managed to respond.  “You have five seconds to change my mind.”

Tanaka smiled, leaned in, and kissed him.

Nothing, no second-hand story, no heresay, no _anything_ could have prepared Ennoshita for the sensation of kissing his long-time crush.  He barely had time to register the smell of skin and the feel of soft lips against his before Tanaka pulled away, far too soon.

“Your turn,” Tanaka said.

“For what?” Ennoshita asked.  More kissing?  He hoped it was more kissing.

“To confess!” Tanaka said, mock offended, “I had a whole speech and everything!”

Ennoshita shoved him playfully, “Yeah, but you started it with ‘I like girls’.”

“It ended good.”

“Yeah, it did,” Ennoshita agreed, and finally did what he’d dreamed of doing for so long. 

He ran a hand over Tanaka’s scalp, feeling the tickle of close-cropped hair on his fingers.  “I like you,” he said, directly.  “I like your spontaneity and impulsiveness, I like the energy you bring to the court, I like your muscles, I like your dedication to your team, and I like your face.”  He stroked Tanaka’s cheek, and Tanaka leaned into his palm.  “I like that you’re loud and I like that you want respect from your kohai and I like that you like me too.  And I _really_ liked kissing you, so we should do that more often.”  He closed their remaining distance by grabbing a fistful of Tanaka’s shirt and pulling him down.

It would have worked beautifully, if Tanaka hadn’t taken a step forward at the same time.  Overbalanced, Ennoshita was slammed roughly into the wall, and Tanaka slipped on the slick grass, falling flat on his face.

Winded, Ennoshita still chuckled as he nudged Tanaka with the toe of his shoe.  “Get up so I can kick your ass.”

“This is not going how I thought it would go,” Tanaka mumbled into the dirt.  He sounded genuinely embarrassed.

“Hey,” Ennoshita said, reaching a hand down to help Tanaka to his feet.  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Tanaka smiled, the wicked twinkle in his eye giving Ennoshita only the barest of warnings before he was tugged to the ground, landing in a heap next to Tanaka, who sprang and pinned him at the shoulders.  “ _And the Fighting Crow defeats his seventh consecutive opponent,_ ” he said in a would-be announcer voice, _“becoming the world record holder for—”_

But he was cut off as Ennoshita wrested his arms free and hauled him down into their second kiss.  This one they took the time to enjoy.  “You’re a dork,” Ennoshita said between breaths.

Tanaka nuzzled into his neck.  “You like it,” he said, and nipped at Ennoshita’s earlobe.

Ennoshita squeaked in surprise and playfully shoved Tanaka for laughing at him, which started a brief tussle in the grass over ear-biting.  They ended up flat on their backs in the grass, looking up at the stars, arguing over who won and whether or not Daichi-san would notice the teeth marks the next day.

“I think you gave me a piercing,” Ennoshita said, rubbing his right ear. 

Tanaka rolled over, propping himself up on his elbows and leaning in “Here, I’ll check.”

“Oh no you don’t!”  Ennoshita grinned and covered his ear completely, refusing to fall for the ploy.

“You’re really cute when you laugh,” said Tanaka, resting his chin on one hand.

Ennoshita covered his face with his arms, vehemently hiding his blush.  “Oh my god, Tanaka, you can’t just _say_ stuff like that!”

“Why not?”

“It’s embarrassing!”

“So?  If I’m gonna have a boyfriend I wanna do it right.”

 _He said ‘boyfriend’ He said ‘boyfriend’ He said ‘boyfriend’_ , was playing on repeat in Ennoshita’s head and he missed Tanaka’s next few words.

“—like Daichi-san and Suga-san.”

Ennoshita uncovered his face, still bright red, “what?”

“I was asking, how long have they even been together?  Since they started high school, right?  And they never talk about it.  You’d never know unless someone pointed it out.”

“Yeah, like he said today, ‘Don’t let it interfere with the team’.”

“So why don’t they act like a couple when they’re not with the team?”

Ennoshita shrugged, “Maybe they do.  We’re part of the team, so how would we know?”

“Oh,” Tanaka conceded.  “Right.  Well, I don’t want to do that.  What’s the point of going out with someone if you can’t brag about ‘em and give ‘em cutesy nicknames and—” he paused.

“And?” Ennoshita asked.

Tanaka pulled up a handful of grass and let it fall.  “I want to hold your hand at school.”

Joy and terror made Ennoshita’s heart race.  Tanaka would be _proud_ to go out with him.  Wanted everyone to know they were together.  All the same, there were other students that would target them for the smallest sign of affection. 

“Aren’t you—” he didn’t want to use the word ‘afraid’, “—worried?  You know that someone’ll, I don’t know, say something or—”

Tanaka gave a snort and said seriously, “Not if they want to keep all of their teeth.”

“Delinquent.”

“You like _that_ , too,” Tanaka pointed out.

“A little bit,” Ennoshita admitted.  “One thing though.”

“Yeah?”

“’Cutesy nicknames’?” he asked.

Tanaka focused once again on pulling up tufts of grass.  “I mean, if you want,” he mumbled.

 _I got your ‘cutesy’ right here, tough guy_.  Ennoshita sat up and leaned forward, nudging Tanaka’s forehead with his nose.  When Tanaka looked up at him, he said “Whatever makes you happy, Ryu-kun.”

It was Tanaka’s turn to flush a brilliant shade of scarlet, and he stuck his face in the dirt between his elbows.  “Nevermind!” he yelled into the ground.  “I can’t handle it!”

 “Not your thing?”

“You’re so fucking cute!  If you did that on the court I’d turn into a puddle!”

Ennoshita laughed and pulled his knees up to his chest, crossing his arms over them.  “Guess Daichi-san was right about not letting it affect the volleyball team.”  He saw Tanaka’s pout and added, “We’ll work up to it.”

Brushing grass and dirt off of his face, Tanaka said, “Fine, but I’m calling you Chika-chan.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Ryu-kun,” Ennoshita repeated, smiling at his boyfriend.

 

They headed back to the dorm house, discussing how to best tell the rest of the team about their relationship.  Ennoshita was pleased at how natural it felt to walk with Tanaka’s arm flung over his shoulder, and his own arm sat casually around Tanaka’s waist.  It was so comfortable that he almost dozed as they made their way back.  Just as he was getting the hang of walking with his eyes closed, Tanaka yanked him into the hedge right outside the house.  Their faces were inches apart.

“ _Ouch_ , Tanaka, what the hell?  If you want to kiss me just ask, don’t throw me into a bush!”

Tanaka waved a hand to shush him and pointed.

Daichi and Suga were sitting on the front porch.

Very _closely_ on the front porch.

In fact, Suga was sitting between Daichi’s legs, his back pressed to the captain’s front, and they appeared to be stargazing.  Ennoshita thought he heard his name mentioned, but he couldn’t keep up with the sounds of their low conversation.

“Guess they _are_ different off-court,” Tanaka whispered beside him.

“This is _weird_ ,” Ennoshita agreed.  “Like walking in on your parents or something.”

Tanaka nodded.  They continued to watch their captain and co-captain in morbid fascination.  Ennoshita was stunned by the obvious intimacy between the two, but still had to hide a snicker when he heard Daichi use the name ‘Kou-chan’.  He looked over to see Tanaka biting down on his knuckles to keep from laughing.

“You were wrong about the nicknames, then.”  Ennoshita said with a grin.  Tanaka nodded fervently, eyes full of mirth.  Ennoshita knew they had only seconds to get their laughter under control before they were found out.  He used his hands to motion that they should take a couple of deep breaths, and was about to say they could sneak around back, when movement caught his eye.

Suga had tilted his head back against Daichi’s shoulder, exposing his neck, which the captain took full advantage of.  Ennoshita and Tanaka watched in horror as Daichi leaned down, and they shared identical looks of disgust when they saw him licking and mouthing at Suga’s neck, strong hands reaching inside his shirt.

As the two onlookers shared simultaneous revolted glances, they heard clearly a moan of, “Oh _, Daichiin…_ ”

Ennoshita clamped his eyes shut, trying to physically block out what may or may not be going on in front of them, and was rescued by a tug on his arm from Tanaka, whose grip slid down to grab at Ennoshita’s hand as he dragged them both running in the opposite direction.  He was nodding to himself.  “Off the court, got it.”

“Yes.  Definitely,” Ennoshita wholeheartedly agreed.

 

They were halfway back to the gym when Tanaka’s phone buzzed in his pocket.  He fumbled with it left-handed for a few seconds, then gave up, switching their positions on the sidewalk so that he could text with his right without interrupting their hand-holding.  It was the cutest thing Ennoshita had ever seen.

After thumbing through a few missed texts, Tanaka stopped and turned again back towards the house.

“Noya says the window in upstairs bathroom is unlocked, and you can get to it from a tree in the backyard.”

“That’s… awfully specific information to have,” Ennoshita said.

Tanaka just shrugged.  “Maybe he climbed down it in his sleep, who knows?”

“Is that all he said?”

Tanaka was silent for a few seconds before passing his phone over to Ennoshita, who read:

                Noya: bathroom window open w tree access  
                Noya: don’t fall  
                Noya: again lol remember last year at field day  
                Noya: hope your a better kisser than a tree climber  
                Noya: guess ill have to ask future-captain-san  
                Noya: phone dying, be back late, see you 2morrow morning

Ennoshita laughed.  “Well, I’ve never seen you climb a tree, but you’re a pretty good kisser.”

“Yeah?” Tanaka asked.

Ennoshita tugged him closer mid-step and gave him a peck on the cheek.  “Yeah.”

“Good.”  Tanaka said.  Was it Ennoshita’s imagination, or had Tanaka’s grip tightened?  “I mean I never kissed anybody before today.”

“Me neither,” Ennoshita admitted, lifting their clasped hands in the air as they skirted either side of a parking meter.  “I really liked it, though.”

“Yeah, kissing you was amazing.”  Ennoshita felt his hand being squeezed tighter again as Tanaka spoke.  “I mean, ‘cause it’s you, you know?”

Ennoshita’s heart soared.  He wasn’t sure how to respond, but was saved by the alert tone that chimed from his pocket.  He checked the text preview.

                Nishinoya Yuu:  he a good kisser?  need 2 kno for science

He swiped through and responded:

                Ennoshita Chikara:  Best I ever had.

Tanaka snorted (‘ _science’_ yeah right) when Ennoshita leaned the phone sideways to show him.  As they read, one last message popped up on the screen.

                Nishinoya Yuu:  nice receive ;)

 

The front porch was, thankfully, empty by the time they returned.  They snuck in the door quietly, grateful that they didn’t have to climb a tree.  Doubly grateful, even, when they heard Coach Ukai singing to himself in the bathroom as they passed the door.

Ennoshita was exhausted by the time they finally lay down, having changed quickly after stepping over the sleeping forms of Kinoshita and Narita.  Tanaka reached out his hand as they got settled, but when Ennoshita took it, Tanaka said simply, “Other one.”

 _That’s not going to be very comfortable_ , Ennoshita thought, but the instant Tanaka had hold of his other hand, he tugged, and suddenly Tanaka was in his arms and craning his neck around to kiss him goodnight, and _nevermind, this is wonderful_. 

It took a few minutes to get comfortable, but once Tanaka had his head pillowed on Ennoshita’s arm and Ennoshita had his face buried in Tanaka’s neck, they both started drifting off to sleep.

Ennoshita had just enough energy to say, “Goodnight, Ryu-kun.”

Tanaka nuzzled against his arm in response.  “’Night, Chika-chan.”

 

The next-to-last day of training camp boasted glorious weather and one last rematch against Nekoma.  Ennoshita was talking to the third years about possible strategies for defeating their rival while valiantly trying to ignore the hickey on Suga’s neck.  Behind them, the banter between the teams was reaching an all-time high.  Both Hinata and Nishinoya were yelling at the Nekoma setter, still absorbed in his phone.  Hinata was on Kageyama’s back for some reason.  The other team’s spiky-haired captain was nudging Tsukishima with his elbow, and Tsukishima himself looked about ready to throw a punch.  But at center court were Tanaka and Yamamoto, both more fired up than usual, trash-talking each other for all they were worth.

“Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?”  Nekoma’s ace made, what (Ennoshita assumed) was supposed to be a threatening face.

“How about I rip that squirrel tail off your head and beat you with it?” Tanaka responded, imitating Yamamoto’s expression.

“Ha!  Try it, Karasuno.”

Tanaka stepped up so they were nose-to-nose.  “You wanna go, City Boy?”

Yamamoto thumped his chest.  “Bring it on, Little Spoon!” he yelled.

Everyone in the gym froze.  There was a _thunk_ as Kenma dropped his phone on the wood flooring.  Both teams turned as one to look at Ennoshita, who was wondering fervently how quickly he could change his name and flee the country.

A sharp laugh from Tanaka diverted everyone’s attention.  He grinned, all teeth, and the whole gym heard as he leaned forward and asked:  “Jealous?”

Yamamoto flung his arms around Tanaka, dramatically sobbing into his shoulder.  “ _I_ want to date someone cute!  Why won’t anyone go out with meee…!”

The tension in the room broken, all members of both teams returned to their previous activities.  Tanaka stood patting his friend’s back, but looked over at Ennoshita and winked.

“Ennoshita,” Daichi’s voice came from beside him.

“I know, I know.”  Ennoshita ran an exasperated hand down his face.  “‘Don’t let it interfere with the team’.”

Daichi nodded and gave a small chuckle.  “Good luck with that.”  To the gym at large he yelled, “Karasuno!  Let’s play some volleyball!”

“HAI!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr @rarepairhellhq  
> \-----  
> Comments/kudos are appreciated!


End file.
